National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

This packet of resources has been designed primarily to aid universities, colleges, and other institutions with Geographic Information System (GIS) expertise and equipment in reaching out to their local schools in an effort to increase teacher and student awareness of this high-growth technology and its spatial analysis core. The method presented in these materials is a one week workshop at the institution in which teachers are brought in for a GIS immersion including a GIS short course and other GIS activities. This packet includes: background information on the NCGIA Secondary Education Project; a detailed description of the prototype workshop used to develop these resources; summaries of GIS oriented projects developed by the workshop participants; a suggested workshop format with helpful hints for working with the schools; lecture notes for the short course; a list of available software packages, instructional materials, and other educational resources of use to teachers attempting GIS activities in their classes; and a simple GIS glossary.